With its tiny eyes it looks like a creature from another world. The blobfish has been nominated as the «world’s most miserable looking» marine animal. It is named after a drop coming from its mouth. The scientists who caught this fish in 2003 between Australia and New Zealand called it ‚Mr.Blobby’. You can admire the preserved fish today in the Australian Museum in Sydney.

This rare species that lives on the ocean floor in the deep sea, belongs to the group psychrolutidae or fathead sculpins. With its bare head and body it is not exactly an attractive fish, but it is perfectly adapted to its habitat 800 to 1200 metres below sea level. In truth this 30 centimeter-long fish is a genuine survivalist.

The body of the blobfish is predominantly a gelatinous mass, almost exactly as dense as water. It does not have a swim bladder like other fish as it would be crushed by the high water pressure.

Large ears, round eyes. The animal gets its name (Ger: das Fingertier) from its special fingers, in particular the long, thin middle finger. The nocturnal aye-aye is a primate, related to chimpanzees, gorillas and orang-utans. It is not entirely clear where the name ‚aye-aye’ came from; perhaps from the noises these animals make when fleeing. 

Aye-ayes belong to the same class as the lemur, which includes around 100 species only occurring in Madagascar. They live in the rainforests on the eastern coast and in the deciduous forests of the west and northwest.

Thanks to their clinging ability, Aye-ayes are very good climbers. They spend the day in self-built, egg-shaped nests of leaves and twigs located in the crutches of trees. At night these animals leave their nests in search of food. They feed predominantly on insect larvae that live in or under the bark of trees.

It digs long tunnels in damp soil and is a good swimmer. This mole from eastern North America has become world famous for its star-shaped nose, made of 22 soft appendages equipped with an unbelievable number of tactile sensors. With these the almost blind mole finds its food unerringly: worms, insects and molluscs.

Almost all 30 species of mole have special touch organs on their noses, but the star-nose mole has taken it to extremes –a unique development in the animal kingdom. The highly-sensitive tactile organ allows the star-nosed mole to detect prey and decide if it is edible within a fraction of a second (an average of 230 milliseconds). Its movements are so quick that the human eye cannot follow them.

That which birds do in the daytime, bats do at night. They devour enormous numbers of insects and are the only animals that catch flying insects during the night. In one night a bat consumes a quarter to a third of its own bodyweight in insects. The ecological importance of this creature lies predominantly in pest control.

Bats have been around for 60 million years. The horseshoe bat is in a family with around 70 other species from Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia. The name of this group of bats comes from the horseshoe-shaped skin formation on their noses.

Sometimes first glances are deceptive. The ‚Puss moth caterpillar’ looks harmless, but the hairs on its body are poisonous. In the event of contaact with skin, medical treatment may even be necessary.

The species got its name because the larvae in later stages somewhat resemble a Persian cat. The caterpillar lives on host trees in the south of the USA and Central America. Oaks are their favourite hosts, but elms and citrus trees are also favoured . There are no reports of economic disadvantages to agricultural crops, so the best strategy is to leave these animals alone as they do not require environmentally-damaging chemicals for their control.